


Bless Those Tired Eyes

by thenewradical



Category: The Martian (2015)
Genre: F/M, Nerds in Love, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 20:37:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5470094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenewradical/pseuds/thenewradical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Johanssen suggests that Beck sleep in her bunk since it's closest to the med bay and Watney.</p><p>This goes exactly as well as you would expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bless Those Tired Eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tricatular](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tricatular/gifts).



Johanssen had a list of things she wanted to ask NASA when they got back to Earth, and at the top of the list was to find out how bunks were assigned. Because putting the actual doctor in the bunk furthest away from the med bay didn’t seem like a great idea to her.

She was sure that the answer would be some bullshit about how the psychologists thought that Beck would benefit from not feeling as though his work was hanging over him. Or, more realistically, they never thought that an astronaut would get stranded on Mars and it would require Beck to trudge (/float) back and forth between the med bay and his bunk at least three times a night.

Johanssen’s bunk was closest to the exit into _Hermes_ ’ passageways and she heard Beck every time he went by during the night. She was already a light sleeper who woke up at anything, but she also kept waking up because she was worried. Worried for Watney, of course, because the fact that Beck had to keep checking on him meant that he really was in bad shape. But she was also worried about Beck; he was obviously exhausted and there was nothing the crew could do to help lighten the load.

On the second night after they got Watney back, just as she was drifting off to sleep, Johanssen heard the unmistakable sound of Beck coming down the hall. She hoped Watney was okay, and that this was just a regular check-up. She wished she knew more about medicine so she could help out. She wondered if she should make Beck some of the shitty NASA space coffee or if that would be weird.

She knew that there was no way in hell she was getting back to sleep.

So Johanssen got back up and grabbed her tablet, figuring there was no time like the present to do a systems check. She also left the door to her bunk half-open. In case Beck needed help with Watney, or something.

Maybe half an hour later, she heard footsteps outside, which paused when they reached her room. There was a knock on the door and she looked up to see Beck peeking in hesitantly. He looked exhausted and his hair was sticking up in the back. She strongly resisted the urge to get up and smooth it down.

“I didn’t wake you up, did I?”

Johanssen shrugged and motioned for him to come in. “How’s Watney?”

Beck sighed. “The scurvy’s harder to get rid of than I anticipated,” he paused, and then added, “which is something I never thought I would say. You’d think NASA would be the one place you wouldn’t have to worry about diseases people associate with sailors.”

“I’m sure Teddy could bullshit his way through something about how we’re like the explorers of old.” Johanssen said with an eye-roll, and Beck groaned.

“In a statement lovingly prepared by Annie Montrose, I’m sure,” he said. He turned to leave, but stopped to say “Get some rest, okay?”

“Only if you do too,” she responded. He smiled at her, and her heart did a flip that made her feel like she was in zero-g.

It was nothing, she reminded herself. Kissing him was momentary insanity brought on by adrenaline and the proximity effect. There was no way Beth Johanssen was going to be so unprofessional as to have a dumb crush on a guy she worked with.

She didn’t close the door, though. Just in case.

* * *

Beck didn’t stop by again that night, but he did the next one. Same as before, he knocked and then cautiously looked in, like he was worried she’d kick him out. She waved him inside and asked “How’s the scurvy tonight?”

“As delightful as the patient,” Beck sighed, leaning against the wall. “I think being on Mars made him more sarcastic, if that’s possible.”

Johanssen didn’t doubt it – she had hung out in the med bay earlier in the day and Watney spent the whole time making fun of her pop culture habits. She watched Beck rub at his eyes. “Do you think you’ll have to get up again?”

“I have an alarm set to check on him every two hours.”

“Shit, Beck,” she burst out, “just move a cot in there or something. I’m sure Lewis wouldn’t mind.”

Beck laughed. “Oh, I tried that last night. But Watney asked me not too. I think he’s afraid of feeling like an invalid after having to look after himself for so long.”

Johanssen frowned. “Can’t you just overrule him? Doctor’s orders, or something?”

“There was a message from some of the NASA psychologists in the last data dump. They advised-” and here he changed his voice to sound more ‘official’, which made her smile, “‘To do everything within reason to accommodate Watney’s requests without endangering his health.’”

Johanssen rolled her eyes. She was over the decision-makers at NASA after they waited so long to tell them about Watney surviving. But Beck liked to be by the book when it came to his work, so she just said “Well, it was dumb of NASA to put you so far away from the med bay, even if they didn't know you'd be up all night.”

“Tell me about it,” he said. “I’m starting to miss residency. At least there I didn’t have to worry about floating into the wrong corridor.” He pushed off the wall and started to leave, “I guess I’ll see you next time I trudge by-”

“You could stay here,” she blurted out. She hadn’t planned on saying it until she did.

The words hung between them. Beck didn’t say anything at first. He was just looking at her like he was trying to read her, but Johanssen knew she was an open book: she never said things she didn’t mean, even if it was crazy to suggest it in the first place.

When he spoke, he didn’t say “No, I couldn’t,” or “Sure, and you can take my bunk.”

Instead, Beck breathed out an “okay,” and before Johanssen really knew what had happened, he was in bed with her, and she had put up her tablet and turned out the light. They were both lying flat on their backs, and there was an inch of space between them. She probably should have said something like “goodnight,” but the words never made it out.

It felt very weird, and (more worryingly) not weird at all.

* * *

Johanssen wished she could say that the first night she spent with Beck was amazing and she slept soundly. That she felt so comforted by his presence and that everything was perfect. But it was not. It was actually kind of miserable.

First there was the physics of fitting two people onto a bunk made for one and feeling like she couldn’t move for fear of falling asleep on him. And then Beck’s alarm really did go off every two hours, pulling her out of semi-sleep while she waited for him to return. On top of all that was the strangeness of whatever they were getting themselves into; she wasn’t even sure if she could call it crossing a line because what lines had been crossed, exactly? She had no idea if Beck was being sincere when he said that he liked the helmet-kiss or if he was just humoring her, and she sure as hell wasn't going to ask while they were in bed together. It was just a friendly practicality, that was all.

But despite the miserable few hours of sleep she got and the fact that she felt even more sluggish in the morning than usual, when Beck passed by her bunk the next night, Johanssen found herself asking him to stay again, and he said yes.

They were going insane, she realized the first time the alarm went off and she blinked against the light from the hallway. Doing the same thing and expecting different results was the classic sign. NASA had always worried that the extended time in space would push them over the edge, and this was how it happened.

Although, she thought, when Beck slipped back in later with a murmured apology, it could be worse. It wasn’t like they were going to pull a _Shining_ on the crew. And if they weren’t going to get any sleep, they might as well be sleepless together.

Rationalization was also probably a sign of insanity. Beck rolled over so that he was facing her and she could just make out his face, and his smile, in the dim light. Oh well.

* * *

She was pretty sure that the rest of the crew didn’t know about the sleeping arrangements. Not so sure that Johanssen was willing to say something like “99.5% sure,” but close to it. She and Beck weren’t acting any differently around each other when they were out of her bunk. It was the same level of professionalism (and unprofessionalism) as always.

She thought she noticed Vogel watching them once, while they were all in the med bay. Beck needed another round of blood samples for his research on the extended impact of space travel on humans. He may have held Johanssen’s arm longer than the others’, but she didn’t really notice. Her attention was on Watney and Martinez over on the other side of the room, loudly maligning disco as Lewis sat there, refusing to change her opinion on the subject.

When Johanssen was finished, Vogel, who was the last in line, was looking between she and Beck with a curiosity usually reserved for his test tubes. But he didn’t say anything about it, just joked with Beck about how he was starting to feel like a pincushion.

It was probably nothing, but Johanssen tried to casually mention to Beck that he should tiptoe when leaving her bunk. Vogel was next door to her, and the last thing they needed was to keep a third person up all night.

Luckily, Beck was having to get up less. As the days passed, the checks went from every two hours to every three hours, and then finally four. Which meant he had to get up only once every night, and he could have gone back to sleeping in his own bunk. But neither of them made the suggestion, and Johanssen settled on being glad that she was only getting woken up once a night.

And, selfishly, sleeping with Beck had started to get comfortable. After the first few nights of stiffness and fear of accidentally brushing against him, the barriers had started to fall away. She’d wake up and her head would be on his shoulder, or he’d have an arm slung across her waist. Whenever something like it happened, one of them would apologize, and the other would brush it off. The more it happened, the less they felt the need to apologize.

One morning, she woke up and found Beck staring at her. “What,” she mumbled, “do I have something on my face?”

“No,” he said, and immediately turned away to concentrate on tying up his shoes.

Something about the way he wouldn’t meet her eyes made Johanssen press for more against her better judgement. “I wasn’t talking in my sleep, was I?” she asked. “You better not have recorded it like my roommate did in college so she could analyze it for a psych paper.”

He laughed a little at that. “No, but,” he paused, and then said quickly “when I got up earlier you pulled me back and asked me not to leave.”

“Oh,” she said softly. She didn’t remember that, but it didn’t sound impossible, especially if she was mostly asleep.

“But you were probably still asleep,” he added, as if he had read her mind.

She thought that would be the end of sleeping together. Once they admitted how weird it was out loud, it would have to stop. But Beck was back again that night, and with only a bit of the initial awkwardness of those first few nights.

Whatever this arrangement was (not a relationship, never a relationship, because that was a crossed line), it was working, awkwardness be damned.

And then Watney crashed.

* * *

He had been getting so much better. Whenever Johanssen would hang out with him while she worked, and he seemed like he was back to his normal self. He was still way too thin, but he wasn’t as gaunt-looking, and he could shuffle around the hallways on his own. From everything Beck told her, she assumed that he was out of the woods.

Like all bad days, it started out normal; Johnassen was in the middle of giving everyone an update on the cooling system (not in great shape, but better than expected), when Beck’s tablet let out a shrieking alarm.

“Fuck!” Beck shouted as he looked at Watney’s stats. He shot out of the chair, yelling behind him as he ran towards the med bay “Vogel, I’m gonna need help!” Vogel was on his feet in seconds, swearing under his breath in German as he followed Beck’s path.

Johanssen, Martinez, and Lewis were left on their own, the room suddenly much too quiet.

“Should I-” Johanssen stumbled over her words in the silence. “Do you want me to send a message to NASA?”

“No,” Lewis murmured. She looked pale and was staring at the hallway Beck and Vogel had run down. “Who knows what’ll happen by the time they receive it. Let’s wait until we know something.”

“He’ll be fine,” Martinez said. He was trying to sound confident, but he looked like he was going to puke. “He didn’t survive launching into Mars in a trashcan for it to all go wrong here.”

Even though Lewis dismissed them from their duties for the rest of the day, no one moved from the table and no one spoke. Finally, the comms crackled to life, and they heard Vogel’s voice fill the room.

“It was an infection,” he told them. “Around one of the broken ribs that has not healed properly. Beck is preparing for surgery and I will assist him. It,” he paused for a moment. “It will probably be a long surgery. I will let you know as soon as we are out.”

Johanssen was in a fog after that. She spent most of the time in her bunk trying to work, scrolling past code without really seeing it. She wanted to be in the med bay (for Watney or for Beck, she wasn’t sure which) but knew that she’d only get in the way.

Finally there was a knock on the door. She jumped up to open it, finding Beck waiting outside. “Is he okay,” she asked tentatively.

“Yeah,” he responded as he came in, and Johanssen let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. “It was touch and go for a while, but he’ll live. I just gave Lewis the full report.”

Without thinking, Johanssen pulled Beck towards her for a hug. He slumped against her, with his chin resting on her head. “I’m so fucking tired,” he murmured. She knew how much it took for him to admit it; he was always pushing forward in order to get everything done.

“Sleep,” she told him. He started to pull away, probably to tell her there was more work to do, but she stopped him. “Seriously. Sleep. I’ll wake you up in a few hours.”

Beck passed out just a few minutes later, his head in Johanssen's lap while she sat up against the wall and tried to finish a project. If she occasionally reached down to brush his hair off his forehead, that was just for her to know.

She was so caught up in how calm everything finally was that she didn’t hear the footsteps outside her door. Her door, she realized too late, that was still half-open.

“Johanssen, have you seen-” Lewis looked in and her eyes widened in surprise when she saw them. “Oh,” Lewis said. “There he is. Um. Tell him to find me when he wakes up.” Before Johanssen could try to explain – despite there being no good explanation - Lewis was gone, firmly closing the door behind her.

Even though Beck later assured her that Lewis had other things to worry about, the feeling that she was completely fucked stayed with Johanssen for the rest of the night and into the morning. She was hoping to avoid seeing Lewis ever again (or at least for another day), but Lewis eventually cornered her in the mess.

Well, “cornered” was the wrong word. Lewis just sat across the table from her and stared at Johanssen in such a way that she felt like she might get killed if she tried to leave.

Johanssen was wondering if this was some interrogation technique Lewis picked up while in the military - like, silently pressuring someone into talking through sheer force of will – when she spoke.

“Do I need to be worried?”

Lewis asked so much in just a few words. Johanssen knew she was always worried – about Watney, the mission, _Hermes_ falling apart, the chance that there was a court-martial waiting for her on Earth. Being commander was not easy, and they were not making it any better for her. Johanssen wished she could give her an easy answer, but she couldn’t.

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly.

Lewis nodded, like this was what she expected. “Well,” she sighed. “At this point, we’ve broken so many rules that sex in space isn't that bad comparatively.”

Johanssen almost choked on her food. “Um,” she said through her coughs while Lewis watched with concern. “We haven’t done that. Or anything really.” For some reason she felt compelled to add “I kissed him on his helmet once.”

It was Lewis’ turn to choke, but because she was laughing. “Seriously?”

“Yes.” Johanssen was sort of offended. She was starting to feel like an inexperienced high school nerd all over again.

Lewis must have picked up on her discomfort, because she stopped gigling and said “I’m not laughing at you. I'm just relieved that I don't have to explain to Teddy that you and Beck decided to perform an unauthorized experiment on how to conceive while in space flight.”

“Yeah, I don’t think you have to worry about that,” Johanssen told her. “We can barely figure out sleeping in the same bed.”

“On the record, I am telling you to keep it that way. Off the record,” Lewis said drily, “you're smart people. You’ll figure it out.”

Johanssen supposed it was good that _someone_ had faith in them.

* * *

A few days later, Johanssen was back in the med bay and listening to Watney complain about Beck’s post-surgery restrictions.

“I was just getting used to my daily constitutional on the lido deck and then Dr. Grumpy demands that I go on bed rest,” he grumbled. “Mars may have been fucking boring, but at least I had a whole planet to wander around.”

“That’s really sad,” she muttered, not looking up from her tablet. She was listening, but this was how she and Watney always were, even before Mars; he would talk for ages and she would let him, enjoying the opportunity to retreat into herself.

“When I get back to Earth, I am eating so much Chinese food,” Watney said. “That’s what I’ve been craving the most. And doughnuts. All of the food that they wouldn’t let us eat since we were selected for this mission, basically.” He was quiet for a minute, and looking back she should have known that she was in trouble. Never trust a quiet Watney. “And what are you doing when you get back to Earth?”

She shrugged, still looking down. “Drinking real coffee is top of my list.”

“That’s surprising,” Watney responded, sounding way too happy. “I thought moving in with Beck would take the top spot.”

Her head shot up and Watney had a shit-eating grin on his face. “Who told you,” she asked.

“Maybe I’m just a keen observer of the human condition,” he retorted. She shot him a dirty look and he added “And Beck told me that he was ‘going back to Beth’s’ a few nights ago. He blushed and then refused to explain. It was adorable.”

Johanssen stayed silent. Lewis and Watney knew, which meant that Martinez and Vogel weren’t far behind. All the people who’d made up her world for years would know, and meanwhile she and Beck hadn’t even kissed.

“I told him to tell you how he felt.” Watney broke the silence, the laughter out of his voice. She met his eyes and he was smiling kindly at her. “In the letter I wrote to him while I was on Mars. Of course, I told him to wait until you got back to Earth. I guess this is the one time he didn’t obsessively follow orders.”

“My letter just had threats for a wedgie,” she joked weakly, not used to this level of sincerity from Watney. But then she asked, “How did you know?”

“You probably never noticed, because you were actually paying attention during training, but Beck had a tendency to stare at you in a way that managed to be adorable instead of creepy,” he told her. “That’s the only reason Lewis had to lecture the rest of the guys about not hitting on you. It was really just for him.”

Johanssen rolled this statement over in her head for a while. She’d been so focused on her own crush that she hadn’t realized that he might have felt the same way, and for longer.

“So,” Watney said, breaking her train of thought. “Am I going to be best man at the wedding? I can also be maid of honor. I’m open to any important ceremonial role you want to throw at me.”

She was not going to over-disclose with Watney like she did with Lewis, so all she said was “I think we’ve got a while before we get there.”

Watney shrugged it off, “I wouldn’t worry about it, you’re both-”

“Please don’t say we’re smart people who will figure it out.”

“Oh, I was going to say you’re idiots. Both very attractive, but total idiots.” Watney laid back down in his cot. “I really look forward to seeing how this all goes.”

* * *

“Watney knows,” Johnassen told Beck that night. “Which I assume means that Martinez knows.”

“That would explain the ‘million mile high club’ joke I just got from him.” Beck slid the door closed, but instead of coming to the bed like he usually did, he waited by the door.

“Watney also told me about the letter he sent you,” she said.

Beck nodded to himself, sighing “I was wondering when to bring that up.”

“We don't have to talk about it now,” she said, to give him an out. "If you want to wait until we're back on Earth-"

“No, I want to tell you now.” He moved closer to her, and in response, she pushed herself off the bed to stand in front of him. He was close enough to touch, but she kept her hands by her side. “I have liked you ever since we first met,” he said, watching her carefully. “I kept thinking that once we worked together, it would go away. But it hasn’t. And I needed to say that out loud, even if it makes things weirder than they already are."

“I like you too,” she responded softly. She felt like she should say more, but she couldn't find the words. But Beck just smiled at her, all relieved and adoring, and she felt her heart swell. So all she said was “What do we do now?”

He looked around at the small, windowless room stuck in the middle of space. “I don’t know. It’s not like we can go to a nice restaurant for a date.”

“Is that why it’s just been this?” she asked quietly. “Just sleeping?”

“It’s not just that. I'm kind of awful at dating,” Beck admitted. “I have no idea what I’m doing and I’m terrified of messing it up. I thought I’d just follow your lead.”

“And what if I don’t know what I’m doing either?” she asked. Johanssen wouldn't necessarily categorize herself as 'awful', but if the past few weeks were any indication, she wasn't put on Ares 3 for her strong social skills.

“I’d still follow you anywhere,” he told her, completely open and sincere.

Johanssen leaned up and pressed her lips against his. She felt Beck smile into the kiss as he gently pulled her to him.

This would be awkward, and the rest of the Ares 3 crew would never stop teasing them. And what would happen when they got back to Earth was a giant question mark.

But for the first time in weeks, Johanssen was okay with not knowing. They’d fumble through it together.


End file.
